For the first time in many years, teenagers have become invested in fighting for a major policy change in the United States, with thousands (if not millions) of students marching out of school on March 24th to push for changes in the United States’ laws on gun control. This comes after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida which saw the deaths of 17 students and the injuring of many more and years of Congressional inaction in response to mass shootings. Historically, once the youth of a nation get involved and invested in fighting for a cause, it becomes virtually impossible for the Government to continue the same policy, such examples of young people forcing a change in policy can be seen with the protests which led to the end of the Vietnam War and the April Revolution of 1960 in South Korea which overthrew the authoritarian dictator Syngman Rhee. Students have a strong success rate in pushing for change, this means that the walkouts that have been led and the protests which have occurred and are planned to push for gun control will be successful. I have a few recommendations that I think will help legitimize the movement.
Let me start with all the great things that the gun control movement has done and all the masterful political decisions they have made. It is indeed one of the best political movements the United States has seen in a long time. The movement has managed to maintain a civil discourse with the politicians they are lobbying to change the laws, even as they attack them for not doing enough, this can be seen at the CNN town hall meeting after the Parkland shooting, where students from MSD High School asked Senator Marco Rubio tough, but fair questions. By keeping the movement about changing the laws rather than pushing out politicians, it becomes more respectable and helps the people see it in an apolitical manner. Another great decision is all the symbolism that the movement has used, whether it be 17 minutes of protesting for each student killed at MSD, placing 7,000 of pairs of shoes outside Capitol Hill to signify the number of children killed by gun violence since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 or leading extremely well-organized protests and walkouts. On top of this, the movement has been intelligent to focus more upon the popular aspects of their agenda, like universal background checks and raising the age to purchase an assault weapon, rather than the less popular, like the banning of certain firearms. Those leading the movement have expertly used the emotions and fears that they and so many have about the risk of gun violence to help advance their cause. The gun control movement is doing a fantastic job and will see major success if they continue using these tactics.
However, the movement has repeatedly made a few errors. One of the major errors that the movement has made thus far is not sounding moderate, using blanket statements rather than ones ending in caveats. The leaders of the gun control movement do not have to change any of their stances to achieve moderation and some have already recognized this, all that the movement would have to do is change the way they talk about gun control. Instead of simply saying “I want to ban assault weapons to keep the nation safe,” one should say “I want to ban assault weapons to keep the nation safe, though I see other ways to achieve this.” By adding a caveat to one’s message, it becomes more immune to attacks from opponents to the cause and allows the movement to retain all of its goals while not angering people. Another error that the politicians who support the movement have been making is using questionable data in their arguments. Politicians like Bernie Sanders have used the data from Everytown for gun safety that claims that 18 mass shootings have already occurred this year, data which includes every example of a firearm discharging on school grounds, including nine which included no injuries or deaths, this claim was rated “mostly false” by politifact. Cory Booker claimed that 1% of gun sellers provide 57% of guns recovered in crimes, which is based on 20-year-old data. These are both common mistakes that occur all the time in politics and should be expected, but I don’t want this movement to just be another political movement, I want it to break free of the errors that political movements always make.
To summarize, the gun control movement that is being led by these teenagers is a special movement that is nearly the greatest political movement of our generation, it just needs a little bit of a push.